By Brady Betzel
Every year we get multiple updates to Red Giant’s Adobe After Effects plug-in behemoth, Trapcode Suite. The 14th update to the Trapcode suite is small but powerful and brings significant updates to Version 3 of Trapcode as well as Form (Trapcode Form 3 is a particle system generator much like Particular, but instead of the particles living and dying they stay alive forever as grids, 3D objects and other organic shapes). If you have the Trapcode Suite from a previous purchase the update will cost $199, and if you are new the suite costs $999, or $499 with an academic discount.
Particular 3 UI
There are three updates to the Suite that warrant the $199 upgrade fee: Trapcode 3, Form 3 and Tao 1.2 update. However, you still get the rest of the products with the Trapcode Suite 14: Mir 2.1, Shine 2.0, Lux 1.4, 3D Stroke 2.6, Echospace 1.1, Starglow 1.7, Sound Keys 1.1 and Horizon 1.1
First up is the Tao 1.2 update. Trapcode Tao allows you to create 3D geometric patterns along a path in After Effects. If you do a quick YouTube search of Tao you will find some amazing examples of what it can do. In the Tao 1.2 update Red Giant has added a Depth-of-Field tool to create realistic bokeh effects on your Tao objects. It’s a simple but insanely powerful update that really gives your Tao creations a sense of realism and beauty. To enable the new Depth-of-Field, wander over to the Rendering twirl-down menu under Tao and either select “off” or “Camera Settings.” It’s pretty simple. From there it is up to your After Effects camera skills and Tao artistry.
Trapcode Particular 3
Trapcode Particular is one of Red Giant’s flagship plugins and it’s easy to see why. Particular allows you to create complex particle animations within After Effects. From fire to smoke to star trails, it can pretty much do whatever your mind can come up with, and Version 3 has some powerful updates, including the overhauled Trapcode Particular Designer.
The updated designer window is very reminiscent of the Magic Bullet Designer window, easy and natural to use. Here you design your particle system, including the look, speed and overall lifespan of your system. While you can also adjust all of these parameters in the Effects Window dialog, the Designer gives an immediate visual representation of your particle systems that you can drag around and see how it interacts with movement. In addition you can see any presets that you want to use or create.
Particular 3
In Particular 3, you can now use OBJ objects as emitters. An OBJ is essentially a 3D object. You can use the OBJ’s faces, vertices, edges, and the volume inside the object to create your particle system.
The largest and most important update to the entire Trapcode Suite 14 is found within Particular 3, and it is the ability to add up to eight particle systems per instance of Particular. What does that mean? Well, your particle systems will now interact in a way that you can add details such as dust or a bright core that can carry over properties from other particle systems in the same same instance, adding the ability to create way more intricate systems than before.
Personally, the newly updated Designer is what allows me to dial in these details easily without trying to twirl down tons of menus in the Effect Editor window. A specific use of this is that you want to duplicate your system and inherit the properties, but change the blend mode and/or colors, simply you click the drop down arrow under system and click “duplicate.” Another great update within the multiple particle system update is the ability to create and load “multi-system” presets quickly and easily.
Now, with all of these particle systems mashed together you probably are wondering, “How in the world will my system be able to handle all of these when it’s hard to even playback a system in the older Trapcode Suite?” Well, lucky for us Trapcode Particular 3 is now OpenGL — GPU-accelerated and allowing for sometimes 4x speed increases. To access these options in the Designer window, click the cogwheel on the lower edge of the window towards the middle. You will find the option to render using the CPU or the GPU. There are some limitations to the GPU acceleration. For instance, when using mixed blend modes you might not be able to use certain GPU acceleration types — it will not reflect the proper blend mode that you selected. Another limitation can be with Sprites that are QuickTime movies; you may have to use the CPU mode.
Last but not least, Particular 3’s AUX system (a particle system within the main particle system) has been re-designed. You can now choose custom Sprites as well as keyframe many parameters that could not be keyframed before.
Form 3 UI
Trapcode Form 3
For clarification, Trapcode Particular can create particle emitters that emit particles that have a life, so basically they are born and they die. Trapcode Form is a particle system that does not have a life — it is not born and it does not die. Some practical examples can be a ribbon like background or a starfield. These particle systems can be made from 3D models and even be dynamically driven by an audio track. And much like Particular’s updated Designer, Form 3 has an updated designer that will help you build you particle array quickly and easily. Once done inside the Designer you can hop out and adjust parameters in the Effects Panel. If you want to use pre-built objects or images as your particles you can load those as Sprites or Textured Polygons and animate their movement.
Another really handy update in Trapcode Form 3 is the addition of the Graphing System. This allows you to animate controls like color, size, opacity and dispersion over time.
Just like Particular, Form reacts to After Effect’s cameras and lights, completely immersing them into any scene that you’ve built. For someone like me, who loves After Effects and the beauty of creations from Form and Particular but who doesn’t necessarily have the time to create from scratch, there is a library of over 70 pre-built elements. Finally, Form has added a new rendering option called Shadowlet rendering which adds light falloff to your particle grid or array.
Form 3
Summing Up
In the end, the Trapcode Suite 14 has significantly updated Trapcode Particular 3 with multiple particle systems, Trapcode Form 3 with a beautiful new Designer, and Trapcode Tao with Depth-of-Field, all for an upgrade price of $199. Some Trapcode Particular users have been asking for the ability to build and manipulate multiple particle systems together, and Red Giant has answered their wishes.
If you’ve never used the Trapcode Suite you should also check out the rest of the mega-bundle which includes apps like Shine, 3D Stroke, Starglow, MIr, Lux, Sound Keys, Horizon and Echospace here. And if you want to get more in-depth rundowns of each of these programs check out Harry Frank’s (@graymachine) and Chad Perkin’s tutorials on the Red Giant News website. Then immediately follow @trapcode_lab and @RedGiantNews on Twitter.
If you want to find out more about the other tools in the Trapcode Suite check out my previous two-part review of Suite 13 here on postPerspective: https://postperspective.com/review-red-giants-trapcode-suite-13-part-1 and https://postperspective.com/review-red-giant-trapcode-suite-13-part-2.
Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working onLife Below ZeroandCutthroat Kitchen. You can email Brady atbradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter@allbetzroff.
